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how to get more blog traffic

5 Reasons Why SEO Is Completely Overrated

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SEO has been praised by many people as a way to get hundreds of daily visitors. In fact, some blogs get thousands of daily visitors from SEO, but there are certain details about SEO that many of the experts leave out. I now get hundreds of daily visitors from SEO alone, but that only happened when I did not focus most of my attention on SEO. I know; very ironic.

I have come to a conclusion. While it is good to do some SEO, it is completely overrated. Some people think of SEO as an easy to access gold mine, but it is anything but that. The only way you land in that gold mine is by driving a clown car and falling into it. Maybe I’m just adding another flavor to Mark Zuckerberg’s comment about Twitter, but that is really what happens with SEO. Ultimately, it’s overrated, and here’s why.

  1. SEO takes a boat load of time to build up. It took me almost two years before I got hundreds of daily visitors from the search engines. Some people take even longer.
  2. My SEO traffic only went up when my social media traffic went up. I’m not going to question that it also takes a long time to build up social media traffic. It took me 993 days to reach my first 100,000 Twitter followers. However, by building your social media presence, you will be hitting two birds with one stone. In addition, once you build your social media audience the first time, it becomes easier over time. Although it took me 993 days to get 100,000 Twitter followers, I can now reach the same milestone in less than 200 days. When I reach 200,000 Twitter followers, I expect to get the same feat accomplished in under 150 days.
  3. Learning SEO takes up too much time. Most people browse through dozens of SEO articles to learn how to boost their SEO. All you need to do is read this article about SEO, and you will have all of the basic knowledge about SEO that you need.
  4. By focusing on SEO, you are competing with millions of other articles. There are millions of articles on the web that are about the same topic as your blog post. By only focusing on SEO, you are competing with the millions of other articles on the search engines. Building a powerful social media presence allows you to escape relying on being on top of this competition. In addition, a powerful social media presence will allow you to eventually end up on the first page of search engines.
  5. Many people strive for SEO more than social media traffic. Many people are implementing tactics to enhance their blogs’ SEO without giving social media a glance. Many of these people have fewer than 1,000 followers on their social networks, but when it comes to bounce rate, catchy headlines, and tags, these people know what they are doing. The result is no blog traffic because SEO needs a big push, social media traffic, in order to bring in more traffic for your blog.

Those are the five reasons why SEO is completely overrated. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips and advice? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

UPDATE: Looking back at this article, I realize SEO traffic is important, but still overrated. Boosting your social media audience and getting more social shares boosts SEO, so I believe focusing on social media is the better strategy. I’ve read more blog posts from QuickSprout so I know SEO is important, but regardless of what stream you use to boost traffic, valuable content is critical towards any blog’s success.

5 Quick Blogging Tips That Will Take You Less Than A Minute To Read

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Quick Blogging Tips

When you master blogging, you will be able to spread your message and communicate with others in a way never done before. My blog’s success has allowed me to interact with thousands of people and meet well-known entrepreneurs of our era. Having a successful blog automatically boosts your credibility. I understand that you are a productive person and are experienced with getting swamped with work on some days. That’s why I made this blog post especially short. Here are five quick blogging tips that will take you less than a minute to read.

  1. Focus on getting social media traffic. Social media is a better way to get more blog traffic than SEO. In fact, your SEO will improve as you get more social media traffic.
  2. We are trained to notice mistakes first. That’s why you always need to proofread your blog posts. Uh oh, did I spell proofread wrong? I bet I didn’t have to tell you that. Proofreading your blog posts will avoid something like that from happening by accident.
  3. Schedule blog posts in advance. There are some things in life that we can’t account for until they happen. Scheduling numerous blog posts in advance will guarantee that you remain consistent.
  4. Write one blog post every day. Writing one blog post every day will allow you to become a better writer. As your writing improves (and there is always room for improvement), you will be able to write better books at a faster rate.
  5. Stick with it. Blogging at times can get annoying. There’s writer’s block, low traffic stats, and other things that discourage us from writing another blog post. Here’s a picture I share a lot to help you stick with blogging, but it is still powerful.

How long did it take you to read the tips?

 

How To Get More Blog Traffic From Squidoo

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Squidoo is a big hub and a great source to get more blog traffic. On Squidoo, you are able to write pages (they call those pages lenses) that you can use to write content on almost anything. Squidoo gives you the ability to promote your blog using their sidebar feature and the ability to promote products on Amazon and eBay.

If you create enough pages on Squidoo, and some (or all) of those pages become popular, your blog traffic can dramatically increase. Let’s say you have 100 pages on Squidoo, and they all bring in 1 visitor to your blog every day. That’s an extra 700 visitors every week, 3000 visitors every month, and 36500 visitors every year. Those numbers really add up, and you only get to take advantage of that by creating pages on Squidoo.

Creating a page on Squidoo is very easy. All you need to do is create a page, work on it for 15-30 minutes, and then you’re done. Promoting your page is all you need to do at that point. Promote it on your blog and social networks. You may be wondering why you don’t promote your blog right from the get-go, but circular viralocity says otherwise. You want to promote something that leads to your blog or social networks, and have those blogs and social networks promote each other.

Promoting a Squidoo page has the potential to share valuable insight with others. If people take the step to click a link on your blog, they will most likely read through your blog’s content and follow you on your social networks.

Not only is Squidoo a great way to bring in more blog traffic, but it is also a great way to earn extra revenue. Some people on Squidoo are making thousands of dollars every month from ads and product commissions. You also have the option to donate a percentage of your earnings to charity. Whether you feel like donating 7% or 77% of your earnings to charity, you can donate any percentage of your earnings to charity.

Do you want to bring in more blog traffic. Squidoo may be the answer you have been looking for. What are you waiting for? Join us!

 

10 Valuable Articles From The Archives

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Archives

The problem with any blog is that as more content gets added to them, other content gets completely forgotten about. A tweet can only do so much to bring back attention to older blog posts that got published months ago. There are many blog posts on this blog that were written last year with methods that still work to this day. In fact, some of those blog posts are still popular, but they still don’t appear on the front page. I decided to dig through my blog to find 10 valuable articles that you should give a second look. They contain oodles of knowledge and things to think about. Some are longer than others.

100 Amazing Blogging Tips

100 Amazing Pinterest Tips

70 Amazing Twitter Tips

20 Thoughts To Live By

The Problem With Waiting For Something To Happen

What Do You Want To Be Remembered For?

Every Blogger Needs To See This Picture

New Year’s Resolutions: Memory Or Lifestyle?

Esurance Won The Ad Bowl By A Landslide. That’s what everyone was raving about when Esurance did its giveaway. The follow-up blog post is “Reanalyzing The Day After The Super Bowl: Was The $1.5 Million Giveaway Worth It?”

What The New York Times, Apple, Twitter, And JetBlue Have In Common

As a bonus article, I present Why Fast Food Restaurants Are Successful.

Which one was your favorite?

 

5 Steps To Get On More Webinars And Podcasts

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Mobile Podcasting

Getting on webinars and podcasts allow you to show off your expertise in a certain area and interact with other audiences. However, few people know how to get on a webinar or podcast to share their expertise. These people want to interact with more audiences, but they don’t know how to reach those other audiences. I remember when I always dreamed of getting on webinars and podcasts because at the time, it was something close to impossible. Now I have been on multiple webinars and podcasts. In order to get on more webinars and podcasts, follow these five steps.

  1. Build your credibility. The more credibility you have, the more reasons someone has to interview you on their webinar or podcast. Building your credibility will help you out in additional ways as well.
  2. Post valuable content. People will only invite you on their webinar or podcast if they know you are going to provide their audience with value. By posting valuable content on your blog, your YouTube videos, and anywhere else you are, these people will be more likely to include you in their next webinar or podcast episode.
  3. Grow your own audience. The people who have their own webinars and podcasts are looking for more exposure just as much as you are. There is always an incentive for a webinar or podcast owner to interview someone who has a big audience that can promote the webinar or podcast.
  4. Be on YouTube. Posting valuable content on a blog and being on YouTube are two different things. In order to conduct a webinar or a podcast, the guest needs to do most of the talking. The person in charge in most cases will just give you a quick intro, ask you questions, and say a quick comment each time you answer a question. Being active on YouTube shows a webinar or podcast owner that you can talk about your niche for a long period of time.
  5. Webinar and podcast shows begets more opportunities. As you get on more webinar and podcast shows, more people will come to you asking if you can be on their next show. After showing off that you can do fine on a webinar or podcast, the fear that some owners may have will be gone. They know that you can do a good job which means they would be happy to have you on their next show.

Those are the five steps to get on more webinars and podcasts. By getting on webinars and podcasts, you will be able to grow your audience and interact with people who you would have never been able to interact with before. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips on getting invited to go on more webinar and podcast shows? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

3 Reasons To Ask Questions In Your Blog Posts

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Questions

In a world where everyone focuses on quality content, SEO, and getting more traffic, there is a tiny detail that many bloggers forget to include in their blog post. Not including this element of a blog post makes these bloggers lose engagement and strong connections (some of those connections lead to sales). The element of a blog post that most people forget about is asking questions.

I always make sure I see one question in a blog post that I publish. I actually search for the question mark using the word finder just to make sure. The reason I make sure I am asking questions in my blog posts is because there are three powerful outcomes of asking questions in your blog posts.

  1. Your visitors will feel as if they are having a conversation with you. Asking a question in one of your blog posts starts a dialogue. The visitor has to think of an answer to that question. Then, as you ask more questions in your blog posts, the conversation will build. How do you think I am doing with this blog post so far? Your response is the continuation of our conversation that is currently taking place.
  2. You blog posts will get more comments. If you ask questions, you will start a conversation. The only problem for the particular conversation taking place (such as the one in this blog post), a visitor cannot ask a blogger a question and get a quick response. I can ask you how your day was and get a quick response. If you ask me how my day was, you would still be staring at a blank screen. In order to get a response from me or any other blogger who asks questions, a visitor would have to leave a comment below to get the proper response. How many comments do your blog posts get? Imagine what would happen if you could double that number. Asking questions throughout your blog posts makes that possible.
  3. Passive reading turns into active reading. If there are no questions in a blog post, then the visitor is passively reading that blog post. When you ask a question, you are turning passive reading into active reading. You are forcing your visitor to go from scrolling through your content to think of an honest answer.

Those are the three big reasons why you need to ask more questions in your blog posts. How did you like the blog post? What are your thoughts on asking questions in your blog posts? Please share your thoughts below.